Quickly, name your five senses.

That’s easy! Right?

Sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste.

Now, what percentage of information comes though each sense?

That one is not so easy.

Here’s another way to think about this. How much information do we gather from each sense in the same amount of time as compared to the other senses? For the moment, assume that each of your senses works perfectly.

Senses: What The Research Tells Us About Their Abilities

Neuroscience and cognitive psychology research has uncovered the amazing power of our senses. This was unimaginable a few years ago.

According to researchers Dr. L.D. Rosenblum, Dr. Harold Stolovitch and Dr Erica Keeps, here’s how much information each of our senses processes at the same time as compared to our other senses.

83.0% – Sight
11.0% – Hearing
03.5% – Smell
01.5% – Touch
01.0% – Taste

That’s surprising. And it flies in the face of some of our conventional educational theories like VAK (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) and Learning Styles. No matter how you slice the pie, our brains give preference to processing vision as compared to our other senses.

Not convinced?

Dr. Stolovitch and Dr. Keeps use the following examples to help us understand this better.

Imagine you’re in an open field. How far can you see? About 50 miles. How far can you hear? Maybe a mile or two. How about smell? 10-20 yards, assuming that the wind is not blowing. How about touch? Just an arm’s length. Taste? A couple of inches.

Senses As Learning Portals

As learners, each of our senses has different processing capacities.

Sight is the major sense and extremely important to learning. Hearing is also important because we acquire our language skills as young children through our hearing. Language gives us the ability to name and explain our experiences. Together sight and hearing help us perceive much of the world around us.

The more our senses are engaged in meaningful and structured methods, the more easily learning can occur. Ultimately, our senses act as learning portals. All raw information enters our brains through those learning portals. Our challenge is making meaning from that information and connecting it with previous experiences and past knowledge.

Do we perceive all of the information bombarding our senses? Do we have the ability to selectively filter out unnecessary or irrelevant information coming in through our senses?

Lectures are good for sharing information.

They are not good for learning and getting listeners to think!

Nor are the good for getting listeners to remember and apply the information they hear. Audience discussion methods are more effective for learning than the lecture.

Lectures are the equivalent of distributing a report and asking people to read it. The scientific research about the ineffectiveness of lectures for education and learning abounds. Yet it is still the primary method used in most education programs.

If the goal of a lecture is audience learning and retention, then the lecture needs to be modified. A simple way to modify the lecture is to add time for hearers to discuss the information with each other one on one or in small groups. It’s best to break the lecture up into several segments and allow for

Buzz Groups

Here is one method to infuse lectures with life-saving, thought-provoking discussion that increases learning and retention.

Buzz Groups are small groups of two to six people that discuss a specific topic, especially that of a lecture. They can be used several times for short periods within a specific education program.

When used within the typical classroom seating, participants in alternating rows turn around to face those in a row behind them. If the room is a terraced theater, have groups of two or three members in the same row discuss the issues or problems. If someone or a pair is left alone at a table, have them join another group.

Adapted from Donald A. Bligh image of Buzz Groups in What's The Use Of Lectures.

The term “buzz” refers to the noise or buzz of the room as people discuss a topic during a program. If the topic is controversial or people have lots of emotion and energy around the topic, smaller groups work better. This allows each individual to develop their own thinking. It also allows for the listener to consider it and provide feedback.

Buzz Groups can be used for audience sizes of 30 to 3,000. When the audience is sitting in theater seating, have them turn to their right or their left and talk to their neighbor.

Encouraging The Introverts

One way to encourage introverts is to have individuals write down their thoughts or responses to a specific question. As individuals finish, have them share their thoughts with their neighbor.

Then Buzz Groups are introduced without official fanfare and a possible negative emotional response of fear of the unknown. This negates the possibility of resistance to interactivity without announcing that you are using a new instructional method.

Evidence: Buzz Group Discussions Work

Buzz Groups have been around for a long time. Professor Donald A. Bligh first wrote about Buzz Groups in What’s The Use Of Lectures in 1971.

Researchers Di Vesta and Smith (1979) showed that a typical 20-30 minute lecture that included three two-minute Buzz Group discussions interspersed throughout the lecture increased learning and recall. Students were tested two weeks later and recalled the main points of the lecture that were discussed.

When discussion was limited to before and after the lecture, researchers Di Vesta and Smith (1979) as well as Ruhl and Suritsky (1995) showed that it actually interfered with learning and recall was limited. The students could not recall the main points of the lecture.

The best method for learning and retention is to break up a 20 minute lecture with a minimum of three times to allow peer discussion.

Why are so many speakers afraid of adding audience discussion to their presentations? What are some other audience discussion techniques that you’ve experienced that increase learning and retention?

Is your organization offering learning opportunities that are based on an outdated model?

Or have you positioned your organization to offer learning opportunities that are proven to be successful today and align with your participants’ learning?

No, I’m not just talking about the linear advancement of technology as applied to learning. Technology is a factor but it is not the primary driving trait. I’m talking about the shift in how culture and the context of a global economy affect our learning.

The Three Stages Of Learning Through Time

As identified in the post Are You Still Providing Education Based On The Industrial Revolution Model? many organizations are still providing outdated delivery models of education based on the industrial revolution model. Then they wonder why their revenue continues to shrink. The education experience feels stale, outdated and from a command-and-control, shut-up, sit-down, listen, don’t ask questions, pay attention approach.

Successful education opportunities today are more collaborative, peer-sharing and discussion based than the old models.

TRClark, ASTD Research, Chief Learning Officer and The eLearning Guild released a report in 2008 that addressed the market upheaval, technological disruption, demographic churning and political instability that threaten learning and organizations today. They traced the history of learning from 1957-2008.

They identified three distinct learning stages during those fifty-one years. They also distinguished the trends for those periods and offered a set of recommendations for future progress.

• Learning 1.0 1957-1981
• Learning 2.0 1981-2004
• Learning 3.0 2004-2008

This post will discuss Learning 3.0 and the future of learning.

Learning 3.0 2004 To Present

During this time period, market disruption and accelerated change became the norm. The volatility and speed of change appears irreversible, which is tough news for organizations struggling to survive. Organizations are challenged to learn, change and lead learning in a way for which they have no precedent. They lack experience and knowledge on what to do next.

The learning mindset is one of continuous, rapid and collaborative learning at the moment of need. Collaboration raises the overall knowledge level of the group. Collaboration is possible but not automatic.

Collaborators can also come away with dumbed-down rather than ratcheted-up collective knowledge as well. Collaboration can be a hit or miss depending on how it’s facilitated and the experience level of the group. Provide the wrong type of collaborative experience and customers won’t return.

Today, education researchers challenge people to view organizations as a system of learning as well as a production and service-delivering resource. Yet most organizations are full of people who have outdated learning skills combined with an industrial learning mindset that doesn’t allow them to learn continuously. Some baby boomers survive on the basis of old skills from another time, immobilized, acknowledging publically the new world but privately unwilling to learn in new ways.

Similarly, some organizations perpetuate cultures of fear. In those environments, people respond by withholding information.

The key to growth is the cultivation and retention of knowledge workers. They create up to three times the profit of other employees says Lowell Bryan, a director at McKinsey and author of Race for the World: Strategies to Build a Great Global Firm.

The speed of change outside of an organization now favors leaders who explore, monitor the periphery and extend the field of vision for the entire organization. Context is ever important to learning. The shift from competence to the ability to continually acquire new knowledge and skills is imperative.

A new learning leader paradigm has emerged. Learning leaders have a unique ability to learn as well as engage others in learning.

Mobile learning, personalized learning and formal as well as informal learning opportunities are critical. Learning context is key and structured, facilitated yet organized collaborative, peer-sharing, continuous learning opportunities rise to the top. Event-based learning is seen within a larger context of ongoing learning and not just a one-time experience. The focus is on creating learning experiences that are memorable, relevant and solve customers’ problems. Learning has shifted from being speaker-centric to learner-centric.

Learning 3.5 – The Near Future

In the future, learning will focus on knowledge management being fully integrated into business workflow process. Content management with today’s contextual global environments is critical. Content, context and collaborative communication are keys.

Mobile, real-time performance smart agents will be embedded within the process as well as ongoing analysis and evaluation. Learning will not be able to be separated from production. An emphasis will be given to acquiring knowledge and creating value in the production process. Learning and talent management systems will facilitate a more seamless integration of workflow and learning.

How can organizations transition from expert- and speaker-centric to being more learning-centric? What role do data, facts and information have in collaborative learning?

Is your organization still trying to make revenue from didactic forms of education and instruction?

Are you using a hierarchical, top-down, command and control delivery model? Are you providing content that seems out of context in today’s every changing global market?

If you are, you are showing your age. You are announcing to the world that you believe old methods succeed in today’s volatile, disruptive markets. And they don’t!

The Three Stages Of Learning Through Time

TRClark, ASTD Research, Chief Learning Officer and The eLearning Guild released a report in 2008 that addressed the market upheaval, technological disruption, demographic churning and political instability that threaten learning and organizations today. They traced the history of learning from 1957-2008.

They identified three distinct learning stages during those fifty-one years. They also distinguished the trends for those periods and offered a set of recommendations for future progress.

• Learning 1.0 1957-1981
• Learning 2.0 1981-2004
• Learning 3.0 2004-2008

This post will discuss Learning 1.0 and Learning 2.0. Tomorrow’s post discusses Learning 3.0 and Learning 3.5, the future.

Learning 1.0 1957-1981

This stage is defined by two enduring learning patterns.

1. Apprenticeship

At a basic level, it’s informal learning in the form of on-the-job training. Young workers in skilled trades observe and work alongside accomplished artisans. Once they have acquired the requisite skills and knowledge, they begin to work independently.

2. Formal Instruction

Teachers instruct students through formal oral instruction. This form of education traces its history to the religious orders’ learning centers centuries ago.

For years, society held these two approaches, experiential and didactic, as the primary instruction methods. While the Industrial Revolution created major shifts in agriculture, transportation and manufacturing, education remained the same.

The rules began to change as technology advanced and foreign economies rose. In 1957 the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik caused organizations to gasp in fear and recognize their own shortcomings. It caused organizations to rethink their competitive positions and ultimately the way they delivered education.

Human capital became a primary focus. Organizations began to departmentalize thinking and non-thinking positions.

Non-thinking positions focused on raw task-based productivity. They were not considered human capital.

During this period, learning was autocratic, top-down, command and control. Training was a necessary part of organizational success. Certification was a one-time learning process for permanent qualification. Education was instructor-led, face-to-face. Organizational learning was restricted to formal events.

Learning 2.0 1981-2004

During this time period, organizations suddenly understood that they must evolve, adapt and continually re-create themselves or face failure. Market disruption, instability and industry consolidation were the trends of the time. The first generation personal computer was born.

Leaders realized that competitive advantage came from people. The Industrial Revolution mindset that individuals attained mastery and permanent qualification began to breakdown. A new learning mindset developed that learning should be a continuous ongoing qualification. Learning became an ongoing process.

Education opportunities transitioned to more democratic, egalitarian and facilitative experiences. Instructor-led was both asynchronous and synchronous in eLearning environments. Formal, event-based education experiences through multiple channels were offered. Instructor-led was more facilitator-0riented with peer-sharing and discussion. (Note: yet many organizations today still hold onto teacher-led didactic formal training as the only type of education offering.)

Three siloed educational functions appeared: training, support services (help desks) and publications. Training focused on formal structured education opportunities. Support services cultivated informal learning opportunities especially when problems and needs arose. Publications developed ongoing print and electronic help.

Tomorrow’s post looks at Learning 3.0 and Learning 3.5, the future.

In what ways to your current learning opportunities align with Learning 1.0 or 2.0? What organizational barriers exist that keep your learning opportunities from transitioning to more effective models?

Your organization’s enduring competitive advantage rests on learning agility.

It must be able to respond to new challenges, opportunities, threats and crisis. New, unprecedented complex challenges constantly present themselves.

Learning At The Speed Of Change

Experienced leaders used to claim that they had seen every problem several times in the past. That’s no longer true today.

To choose leadership in today’s world is to choose change. Today’s leaders will confront a parade of previously un-encountered issues.

The half-life of an organization’s knowledge mirrors its competitive strategy. Organizational leadership faces a more rapid learning requirement. Unless an organization can learn at or above the speed of change in its environment, it faces the risk of irrelevance and failure.

Learning Required To Maintain Competitiveness

Organizations must undergo new learning cycles to maintain competitiveness. They need to constantly retool to endure the competitive pressure.

Each organization has to prioritize its learning needs based on strategic objectives. The challenge is that too few organizations learn fast enough or well enough.

To further complicate the problem, employee retirement is on the rise. When employees leave, they take obsolete knowledge, skills and models best suited for former times. However, they also take enduring insight and wisdom born of experience.

The net result is that the average organization is losing a larger portion of its stock of knowledge capital each year. That only magnifies the learning challenge as it hastens the obsolescence of knowledge and skills assets.

Ultimately, organizations don’t compete beyond the bounds of their ability to learn. One of the biggest organizational challenges today is learning agility, the ability to learn and respond quickly to constant change.

Having a good strategy and being able to execute the strategy is usually what delivers competitiveness. Eventually, that competitive cycle and strategy come to an end. That’s when an organization’s learning agility is put to the test.

Learning Agility Defined

Learning agility is an organization’s ability to respond to adaptive challenges. Adaptive challenges require a change in the system and processes. The solution rests outside of the current operations. Keeping old priorities, habits and processes do not solve adaptive challenges.

Learning agility is the ability to respond to adaptive challenges through the acquisition and application of new knowledge and skills. Some organizations learn quickly and effectively apply the collective knowledge of their employees and members. Some respond slowly and ineffectively.

At the organizational level, agility is the ability to grow, change or innovate at or above the speed of one’s own market. Anything less is not agility.

1. Agility is not competence.

Competence is the ability to meet the challenges of today. The organization possesses the necessary knowledge and skills as well as the ability to apply them effectively.

Learning agility is the ability to continuously acquire new knowledge and skills during or ahead of market changes.

An organization may be highly competent today. Yet today’s competency is not a good predictor of future competency. Learning agility is the best predictor of future success.

2. Organizational learning agility extends beyond the people in the organization.

It is not simply the learning agility of its employees and members. It allows the organization to perform beyond the accumulated learning agility of individuals.

It’s a process that involves both asking for solutions from outside of the organization as well as inviting new ideas from inside. It engages external partnerships to generate innovation.

Agility Responds To Adaptive Challenges

Ultimately, an organization must learn each time it responds to a new adaptive challenge.

The learning implications of today’s global society are breath taking. Enduring competitive advantage must be built on organizational learning agility.

What are some ways to embrace learning agility? What are some characteristics of high-levels of learning agility?

Few people agree about what makes a good lecture.

It’s like asking about what is good art or great music. Our personal tastes are all over the map.

Some researchers have found that individuals want different and often conflicting things from a lecture. Since lectures will be evaluated and assessed at extremes of a rating scale, lecturers will do well if they please at least 50 percent of their audience.

What A Lecture Is And Isn’t Good For

So what’s the point? What are lectures good for and what are they bad at doing?

According to scientific research*:

1. The lecture is as effective as other methods for transmitting information.

For instance, lectures are as effective as distributing a report. That’s right, as effective as distributing a report! Remember, transmitting information does not mean it will be learned or retained. It’s just passing out information.

2. The lecture is ineffective for promoting thought.

Research shows that small group or peer discussion is more effective to promote thinking. Lectures put extreme pressure on your brain to either listen to what the lecturer is saying or think about the meaning of what your lecturer is saying. Your brain cannot divide its attention to both listening and thinking at the same time. If you start thinking about how to apply the information the lecturer is discussing, you stop listening and miss the next point.

3. The lecture is ineffective for inspiring interest in a subject.

After attending a lecture, we may feel motivated for a moment about a new subject. Those emotions peak within a matter of minutes. Rarely does the lecture lead to long-term interest in a specific topic.

4. The lecture is ineffective for changing attitudes and behaviors.

The lecture should not be used to try to change social behavior. Lecturers cannot change others’ attitudes and behaviors. If they could, we would have less people attending faith assemblies because we would have all changed our thoughts and actions already.

5. The lecture is ineffective for teaching values associated with a specific topic.

Changing someone’s values should not be the goal of a lecture. Only individuals can change their own values.

6. The lecture is effective for one-on-one personalized instruction but not group instruction.

If a person is talking one-on-one with another person, the listener has the ability to provide immediate feedback to the lecturer. The lecturer can change and adapt the speech for that listener.

* Bligh (1971, 2000), Donald A Bligh provides a comprehensive guide to the research about the uses and abuses of lectures in his book What’s The Use Of Lectures.

How can we tweak lectures to make them more meaningful and effective learning experiences? What are some successful methods to replace the standard lecture in the conference or workshop environment?

The ubiquitous lecture.

On any given day thousands of lectures occur across the globe. People gather in arenas, board rooms, city halls, colleges and universities, conferences, conference rooms, churches, general sessions, libraries, meeting rooms, schools and theaters to hear lectures.

It is the most common method used when teaching adults. Unfortunately, it is also ineffective for learning.

What Happens When We Listen To A Lecture

Researchers Eillis and Young (1988) studied the brain’s pathways of stimulation. They compared stroke and brain-damaged patients to healthy people. They uncovered our brain’s process and activities that must occur when listening to a lecture.

Here are the chronological sequences that happen in our brain when we listen to a lecture.

1. Auditory Analysis of Sense Data

Listeners must hear the noise the lecturer makes, hold it in memory long enough to distinguish from other noises, analyze it into individual speech phonemes (sounds) and group phonemes together to make syllables. The listener must also ignore variations in pitch, speed and accent. (Some can’t get past the pitch, speed or accent of the lecturer to ever hear the phonemes.)

2. Word Recognition

After auditory analysis, the syllables must be matched with our brain’s auditory store of words. Some words are unrecognizable because they may be new or unfamiliar technical terms. If the listener tries to write the new words, they must pay attention to the individual phonemes and associate them with graphic shapes (uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, visual symbols).

3. Contextual Factors

Some syllables are identified because of their context in the lecture. The short term memory of the auditory lecturer’s words lasts only for up to two seconds before the brain’s impulses of those words decay. This explains why people remember one-liners and buzz phrases. If the point can be made in less than two-seconds, it may stick.

4. Articulatory Loop

Listeners’ subvocal speech, moving their lips and speech muscles without making a sound, can extend auditory verbal memory for a few seconds. Some “mouth the words” when listening to a lecture which may actually help in short-term memory retention.

5. Constructing Meaning Through Encoding

The information received must be associated with, discriminated against or chunked with other information. If the information is to be encoded in short-term memory and hopefully retained within long-term memory, the meaning of the words and the link to our own conceptual map must be made. When someone takes notes, the likelihood for encoding increases. If a listener is not given time to construct meaning and encode it, understanding is lost.

6. Thinking

The recognition and thought about what the lecturer is saying interferes with matching the next group of words uttered by the lecturer. Listeners face divided attention if they try to think about what the lecturer is saying and try to make meaning of those words versus listening to new information the lecturer is saying.

7. Expressing

Once listeners know the meaning of what the lecturer is saying, they search their minds for ways to express it. They may do that through speech or writing. Often, lecturers don’t give listeners enough time to express or record their thoughts. So the information is forgotten.

8. Processing

Some lectures allow listeners to attain surface knowledge of the topic. The learning is shallow and the retention is low. When lectures allow listeners time to construct meaning, encode the information, think about it and express it, they foster deep learning. Processing the information on a deeper lever means the listener remembers more.

Learning From A Lecture Is Complex And Fragile

As you can see, the processes involved in listening to a lecture are complex and fragile. In addition to these chronological steps that occur, there are a host of other factors that can aid memory or cause one to forget. Typically, there are more factors that cause us to forget.

Regardless, listeners are under extreme pressure to either listen to the lecturer’s words or try to make meaning of them. They cannot do both at the same time. This is why lectures are poor for learning.

Why are we enamored with the lecture when it ineffective for learning and retention? Why do we depend so much on lectures as an education model?

Lectures are ineffective methods to promote learning.

Even if you want to disagree with this premise, the scientific research remains the same. Lectures have limits. They are effective ways to transmit information. They are as effective as distributing a report to read. They are not as effective as discussions for learning.

Two Methods To Combine With Lectures

The lecture alone is rarely adequate for educational purposes. Here are two strategies to use with lectures to ensure learning occurs.

1. Quadrant Notetaking

At the beginning of your presentation, ask participants to take a blank piece of paper and draw a horizontal line dividing the page in halves. Then have them draw a vertical line creating four quadrants. Ask them to label each section using the following symbols and/or words:

• A book – to symbolize facts
• A light bulb – for ahas or new ideas
• A question mark – for questions they have
• A stick figure running – to symbolize their action plans

Stop several times during your presentation and ask your participants to write a word, phrase or sentence in a section. For example, you might stop near the beginning of your presentation and ask the audience to write a couple facts they just learned in the book section. Later you might ask them to write something new they’ve heard in the light bulb section. Half way through the presentation ask them to write something in the action plan section of what they want to apply back in the office.

Quadrant notetaking is actually an advanced organizer. It helps learners focus on specific facts and actions. It helps them organize the presentation for recall. It keeps them involved while listening. It fosters thinking and application of information. Ultimately, it becomes a review souvenir to read later.

2. The Neighbor Nudge

You’ve been presenting for about ten to twenty minutes. You know you need to stop and involve your listeners as learners. Here is a quick and short activity that will only take a couple of minutes.

Say to your audience, “It’s your turn to talk. Look at your neighbor sitting near you. Decide who will go first and who will go second (or third for triads). The first person should gently nudge their neighbor and tell him or her the most important thing they just heard in the last few minutes. Then reverse the task. You each have sixty seconds to talk to each other.

Variations on the question learners should answer:

• Share one question you still have. See if your neighbor knows the answer.
• State three things you now know that you didn’t know before this presentation.
• Tell you neighbor how you plan to use the information you just heard.

Each time you use the Neighbor Nudge, have listeners find a different neighbor. This extends their neighborhood.

After pairs have discussed your content, take a few more minutes to debrief with the entire audience a few willing volunteers’ comments.

What other learning methods or strategies have you seen combined with lectures that are effective? Why do you think discussion is such an effective strategy for learning?

Want more information about lectures and strategies to increase learning? Read these:

• Resurrect Lifeless Lectures: Tips For Turning Listeners Into Learners
• Preventing Death By Lecture Through Audience Discussion
• From Panic To Calm: Strategies To Help Presenters Leverage Adult Learning Principles
• What Lectures Actually Achieve
• Avoiding Zombie Zeitgeist: How Passive Listening Undermines Learning

Lectures have limits when used for education.

Lectures are a great way to share information. However they are not as effective as discussions for getting learners to think, develop attitudes or change behaviors.

Why Lectures?

In politics lectures are called speeches. In faith institutions lectures are called sermons. In colleges and universities lectures are called teaching. Most conferences begin with a cornerstone lecture often called a general session keynote. At conferences and tradeshows, the lecture takes center stage more than discussion and meeting with people.

Whatever it’s called, the lecture is a continuous exposition by a speaker who wants the audience to learn something (Bligh, 2000). The very notion of a lecture implies a mental process of learning.

Speakers who use lectures typically have at least one of four learning objectives.

They want the listener to:

1. Receive and gain information.
2. Think about the information and apply it.
3. Have a change in attitude.
4. Make a change in actions and behaviors.

What Lectures Actually Achieve

The lecture is effective at transmitting information. However, it is not more effective than other methods of sharing information such as distributing and reading a report. It is as effective. (McKenzie, 1963; Dubin & Taveggia, 1968; Bligh, 2000).

Would people be willing to pay and attend a conference if every session just distributed a report to read? Of course not. Yet, according to scientific research, distributing a report is as effective as the lecture.

If the goal of the lecture is for people to remember the information, the lecture will fail. Why? Lectures are ineffective for promoting learning. They are the equivalent of reading information online. Just because you read it, or heard it in the case of the lecture, does not mean that you learned it. Just because you heard it does not mean you will recall it and ultimately, will apply it. All you did was hear information.

Changing a listener’s attitudes, actions or behaviors should never be the goal of a lecture. Why? In order for someone to change their attitudes or behaviors, they must think about the information. The information must go through a formal process in the brain from short-term to working to long-term memory in order for it to be learned. The listener must be given time to think about the information and process how to apply it. The lecture goes against thinking.

The very premise of a lecture is flawed for most of our situations today. It presents the perception that an expert who knows gives knowledge to listeners who do not know. The listeners therefore have nothing worth contributing.

However, in today’s society, most of us believe that the audience often has just as much to contribute as the expert.

Ultimately, lectures are effective for sharing information. Yet they are ineffective for learning.

Why are so many people willing to pay and attend the basic lecture when the ROI of learning is non-existent? What will it take to get conference organizers to shift from the traditional lecture to more effective methods of learning?

How much do you learn from your sight?

Take a guess.

The majority of scientific and education researchers agree that about 75 percent of your learning is through your vision. Wow, that’s a lot.

According to neuroscientist Dr. John Medina, “The more visual the input becomes, the more likely it is to be recognized and recalled.”

Infants And First Dates

Consider babies. They pick up behaviors by observing people around them. They mimic facial expressions. They process and interpret physical gestures and emotions from nonverbal communication. From a single glance, babies know if mom is happy or upset with them. This learned behavior never changes. Our moms can still give us that glance and we know exactly what it means!

Now consider two people on their first date. They dedicate a lot of their attention to each other’s body language more than the verbal communication. They watch each other’s gestures and faces intently trying to interpret if they’re connecting or not.

Vision And Memory

Neuroscientists state that between 50%-80% of our brain’s processing power is dedicated to seeing and processing our visual sense. Your visual sense is key to interacting with the world around you. And it trumps all the other senses when it comes to learning.

On average, people know the names of approximately 10,000 objects. We can recognize them by their shapes alone. By the time most children are six, they’ve learned and can recall the names of more than 2,000 objects. That’s one-fifth of what they will know in their lifetime.

Visual stimulation helps brain development the most. It also aids more sophisticated types of learning, both where we’re young and during our adulthood. One study showed that those who used visual presentation tools to convey information were 43% more successful than those that did not!

Seeing Is Believing…And Learning

Once our brains see something a certain way, it tries to develop a memory of it.

Think of the optical illusions you’ve seen in the past. For example, look at the Canadian flag with the maple leaf. If you look closely, you can also see two angry men head-butting each other. Can’t see it? Look for the pointed noses in the top right and top left deepest decreases.

Once you see it, you won’t forget it. From then on, every time you see the Canadian flag, your mind’s eye will flit between the maple leaf and the two angry men.

Images Versus Words

Your brain defaults to images for words, when it can. We remember images. We forget words. When we first start to read, our brain tries to interpret letters as images. Put several letters together and our brain has to think through each individual letter as an image. At some point, it reads combined letters and thinks of the image, instead of the word.

Educator Jay Cross says it best, “We humans are sight mammals. We learn almost twice as well from images plus words as from words alone. Pictures translate across culture, education levels and age groups…the richness of the whole picture can be taken in at a glance.”

If images are so powerful, why do so many speakers refuse to use visuals with their presentations? Why do so many speakers persist in presenting information without analogies, graphics, metaphors, photos, stories or videos?